On the Web

Profile Information

Full Name:

Stuart Laverick

Display Name:

AppSol

Job Title:

Mr

Company:

Appropriate Solutions

Type of Work:

Design / Development

Location:

Cumbria, UK

Favorite Thing About SEO:

Statistics and Trends

Bio:

Search and Usability centric Web Developer. I build websites that are designed to allow clients content to position well and flow across the web easily. I build apps that crunch the data to find out what works and what doesn't so clients efforts are not wasted. I'm old enough to have watched the birth and growth of the web, and I am currently enjoying it's teenage tantrums.

What's important to remeber from a statistical point of view, is that the missing data, and therefore the remaining data also, is not randomly drawn. The remaining data is from those users who are not logged in to their Google accounts, while the missing data is from those who are.

If the remaining data came from a randomly selected sub-set of the search cohort then we could still draw effective conclusions from it, even down to a 30% sample share of the population, but it's not. The remaining data will come from a specific sub-set of the cohort, those with and logged into Google accounts and all that that implies (perhaps more technically savvy, more web related, those who use Gmail regularly, etc). This will skew the remaining data and make it harder for us to draw effective and accurate conclusions from it.

I see this as another move in Google consolidation of their position in the search space. Changes to terms of service on Google Maps, Web Search and other APIs all look like the moves of a company seeking to monopolise on it's predominant position. I never thought I would say this but Go Bing!

Absolutely agree. Natural linking strategies will reap a long term benefit, and add to the usability of the site, in much the same ways that the "open target in new window" practice should just burn and die.

But people being people, many do not want to share their toys with the neighbours kids. So what do you feel about linking, but with a rel="no-follow"?